The four thousand years of Atreides rule on Arrakis is a case study in how a self sufficient proud, healthy culture can be destroyed through a clumsy, thoughtless educational policy The Hemen prior to the arrival of the Atreides were a seminomadic people whose tribal culture was well suited to their hostile planet and its oppressive Harkonncn governors Fremen education consisted not of formal schooling in specific subject areas but of a total hie training A child was trained by all members of the tnbe from his earliest days until maturity The life and safety of the tnbe depended upon each person s ability to ob serve the water discipline of the sietch and to know how to conduct himself on the dangerous open sands of Dune The most successful method of this total training was the ancient Riddle Game Its interactive methodology forced the child to reason, not merely memorize to find the answer Thousands of nddles went into Fremen training, some examples Challenge 'Si lence7" Answer The friend of the hunted Challenge ' What are two things never to do7" Answer 'Never to forgive, never to for get " Challenge What does one take into the desert? Answer Everything that is necessary and nothing else The tribal sietch formed the home from which a person reaching maturity moved out into the world The sietch was essentially a rule of law exemplified by the benevolent personal authority of the Naib Group action was the norm All training of the young focused on the life of the sietch and their expected contributions and responsibilities to that life In the sietch warren schools, the young were trained to make and service stillsuits, rugs, windtraps stilUenls and weapons They learned how to maintain stolen machines, harvest spice, hunt use a crysknife, repair a catch-basin and ride Shai Hulud FREMEN EDUCATION 231 FREMEN EDUCATION With the arrival of the planetologist Pardot Kynes the aspirations and subsequent education of the Fremen began to change The emphasis still remained on the ancient, time-tested values of purposeful survival training, including the values of tribal unity and water discipline But Kynes offered the Fremen a dream-that the desert planet might someday be a lush, green, water-rich planet The entire ecology of Dune might be reversed, according to Kynes, through understanding Dune's ecosystem and then altering it As is often the penalty for such hubris, the Fremen got exactly what they hoped for, and it destroyed the planet's only real source of wealth, its spice crop, as well as the vitality of Fremen culture Kynes started the first formal sietch schools and, as a result, is often referred to as the "Father of the Fremen Education System " This title should not be viewed as an honor, given how matters turned out.